


liminal spaces

by mnemememory



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, blanket warning for caleb's backstory, cause it's not...fun..., like not that much but it's there, seriously wtf caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 11:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14693082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Caleb is so tired.(or; “To be clear…do you know what you’re fighting?”Caleb doesn’t. He thought he did, a long time ago. Not anymore.)





	liminal spaces

The first time Caleb considers killing Nott is the first time he also considers killing himself.

Well, no. That’s a lie. He’s thought about _that_ a lot – it’d be an easy end, with his affinity for fire, it an unpleasant one. No need for a funeral pyre, even – bones splintering with heat, blood popping in his veins. He can almost taste the ash in his mouth, coating the inside of his throat. But he’s been tasting that for a long time, too. There’s so much in him that’s diseased.

But it’s always a distant thought, a hollow one. Even when locked away at the asylum, even when scratching at white walls until his fingers bled – even then, nothing had seemed quite real. There was always this dull sense of dislocation, of not existing. _No_ , he thinks – _no_ , he thinks, has been thinking it for years. _There’s no way. There’s no way._

He doesn’t remember much about those years away, about darkened windows and cracked bulbs. There’s always this distant buzzing in the back of his mind, static fuzz that clings like sour honey to the inside of his brain. Or congealed blood.

The thing is – _the thing is_ , it’s not all gone.

The woman, the patient. He remembers the creases of her face, the mad lines of her eyes. She put hands on him, and it was all gone. Everything scrubbed clean and raw, bloody and bruised and so broken. All gone. All gone. Rebirth has never hurt so much.

 _Be still_ , she had said. Or something else. Caleb can’t remember, really, because he hadn’t been paying attention. Later, thinks he might have said something back. Or he might have been screaming. Madness came in doses.

He had probably been screaming. He still feels like screaming, most days, only now he’s got a better handle on it.

It’s a relief, at first. Such a relief. _Not me_ , he thought, _not me, not me –_

Of course he’s wrong. Of course he is.

…

…

He meets Nott, first, and she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Well, aside from Frumpkin, but he doesn’t seem to mind sharing in Caleb’s affection. Caleb is desperate, Caleb is lonely, and Caleb loves Nott so, so much.

The first time it happens, they’re sitting in a tavern, just the two of them. All things seem to start in taverns, but this one is particularly unremarkable on every possible level – price, comfort, beverages. Nott is drinking like a fish, but she’s earned it after their last con. Caleb still can’t believe they managed to pull it off, if he’s going to be honest. It doesn’t matter. No one’s going to ask, so Caleb will never have to admit to it. And if he’s drinking a little more than usual, well. There’s no one but Nott to notice that, too.

Caleb is reading a rather interesting book on the trade economics of pirates. He thumbs through the pages, drinking in decades out-of-date theory on sea traders and the navy. Impossible things to contemplate now, of course. Caleb’s lips downturn bitterly as he reads about seafarers turning to a life to crime to escape especially awful captains. It’s all very carefully worded so as not to step on any current toes. Caleb might have liked to meet the author, if he wasn’t already so obviously dead.

A group of men sit in the far side of the tavern, all hunched shoulders and scruffy beards. Caleb has nothing against beards (he has one himself, though it’s more than he can’t have knives to his throat anymore than any real aesthetic choice), but these ones are particularly awful. Their faces are haggard, callouses scarred into the gnarled grooves of their hands. It’s a quiet, unremarkable night, so Caleb can clearly hear their private conversation from across the room.

“I can’t keep this up,” a red-haired human says, slumped so far forward he’s almost drowning in his drink. “All day, all night – I’m being worked to the bone. See?” he raises his shaking hands for the rest of the table to inspect.

Another human man, this one with silver hair, knocks his friends’ hands to the table. “Get those outta here,” he says. “No use complaining. Not now. No use in doing much of anything now. Maybe we should just quit.”

“Just leave?” their companion, a stout halfling with patchy clothing, says. “Don’t be stupid. Where would we go?”

“Away from here. Anywhere’s gotta be better than this stinking pile of shit.” The silver haired man spits on the table. Caleb’s fingers twitch. “The Empire ain’t done nothing for us put kill our good looks and good drink.”

“Anywhere but Xhorhas,” the halfling says. “Wouldn’t want to visit that hellhole for all the good ale in the world.”

The red-haired man laughs tiredly. There’s something tired about the way all of them sit and drink. “Maybe I’ll go defect,” he says. “Can’t be as bad as they’re saying. Not really.”

His companions protest – Caleb is _sure_ they at least say something, but. He can’t hear. He can’t see. There’s fire, everywhere, all around. In his ears, in his throat. Always in his throat. No matter how far he goes, no matter how long he lives, he will never be able to breathe properly again.

 _Traitor_ , he wants to stay, wants to spit. He’s said that word so many times over the years, to so many people. Judge, jury, executioner. He’s been at least one of those things, maybe all three, depending on circumstances. He can’t remember. _He can’t remember_. The woman took away the clouds, but it’s left him wrecked. He’s left himself wrecked. Caleb can’t remember a time when he was whole, anymore. It’s been so long.

His fingers clench down so hard on the book that one of the pages rips. He breathes, centring himself. _You must not kill them_ , he thinks. _You must not kill them. You must not kill them._

He gets out of his chair. Nott looks at him blearily from behind her massive flagon of ale, but Caleb waves her concern off. He has to get out of here. The room is hot. The fire is burning too high. Caleb _needs to leave_ , right now, this instant, five minutes ago.

The group in the corner are still talking, but Caleb doesn’t listen, makes himself not listen. They didn’t do anything wrong, he thinks, and thinks, and thinks. They didn’t do anything wrong. You cannot kill people like this. You should not kill people at all.

The cold night air is a punch to the chest. He feels his lungs pulling in – _trying_ , so desperately, to pull in air. He goes around the side of the tavern, into a dark alley that has no right existing in such a well-lit town, and he sinks to his knees and tries so hard to breathe.

“Mother,” he chokes out. The words are like acid on his tongue, dribbling from his lips and blistering his chin. “Farther.”

Caleb has killed so many people. He has killed so many people. He wonders, sometimes, what he was thinking back then, because he can’t remember. He can’t remember the way their bodies fell, one after another. It’s there in his mind, like a well-worn image that’s been tossed around too many times, but the ink is blotchy and the edges are black. One day, it’s going to burn him up inside, this thing, and leave nothing left.

Not like before. Before, there were shards of broken glass lodged throughout his body – his head, his chest, his spine. He still cuts himself on them, sometimes. Like now. He’s bleeding heavily, and he can’t even see it. What a waste.

The thing is. _The things is_. Caleb had thought. For a while, Caleb had thought that it was all gone. The clouds, the (fake, they were fake, _oh gods they were fake_ ) memories, the burning passion and the righteous anger and whatever else had bruised Caleb’s head so badly he hadn’t been able to think for himself anymore. He’d, thought, for a while: _I’m free_.

And here he is, head between his legs, coughing on air and trying not to cry. _Murder as reflex_ , he thinks. _They were traitors_ , he thinks.

They were three people, having alcohol and complaining about life.

 _How many people_ , Caleb thinks, _Have I killed for less_?

…

…

Caleb doesn’t know why, but he expected Ikithon to look different. Maybe less tall. Maybe older.

Trent Ikithon looks exactly the same as he had the last time Caleb had seen him. Or, well, the last time Caleb really remembers seeing him. Time blurs, after a while, and nightmares are a bad indicator of truth.

Sitting next to the door, Frumpkin within viewed-distance of this train-wreck of a conversation, Caleb wonders if he ever really woke up.

…

…

“To be clear…do you know what you’re fighting?”

Caleb doesn’t. He thought he did, a long time ago. Not anymore.

…

…

Maybe it’s unwise to trust his secret to Beauregard, but he’s surprised to find a part of him wants to. Of all of them, she’s also running – in a different way, but it’s similar enough to put him at ease. It’s nice to know he’s not the only one who exists with eyes glued over his shoulder.

And he wants access to that library. He wants access to that library _so badly_. Badly enough, it seems, to trust her with everything. As much of the truth he can stomach to share. There’s more, because of course there’s more, but he doesn’t want to go into that now.

He asks, “How do you feel about the Empire?”, and it feels as much of a test for him as it is for her.

“She took away the clouds,” he says, and it feels like a lie buried deep in the sand.

He wants to say, _She took away the louds, but she didn’t fix me. Nothing can fix me, not the way I am. I fight against it every day, and it’s going to catch up with me, I know it. I killed me parents, me. It was me there, in my head. It’s always been me._

She doesn’t seem to realise. Caleb doesn’t know how to feel about that. “It’s no big deal,” she says, like it isn’t. Maybe Caleb hasn’t properly explained it. Maybe he needs to try harder, make her really _understand_ , because she doesn’t really get it. There’s no way in the world that she could get it. She hasn’t ever killed her parents, after all.

…

…

Here’s the thing: he was so sure. He was _so sure_.

Until he wasn’t.

…

…

 

The first time Nott says, “I hate the Empire,” Caleb’s hands shake with negative heat.

The longer he’s away from – well, everything – the more he gets tangled up in conversations that border the line between civil dissent and outright revolution. Caleb never knows how to manage it. His now-preferred method is to just leave the situation and, if possible, sneak back into their room late at night. Nott never comments, because Nott is an actual literal angel who Caleb in no way deserves.

And here he is. Nott says, _I hate the Empire_ , and Caleb thinks, automatically: _Traitors must die._

As soon as he thinks it, it’s a shock to the system. A thick, oily wave of self-loathing follows. Bile threatens, but he swallows it down, tasting ash. Always ash.

( _Did you go in after them_? Nott will ask later. Much later. Did you go in after your parents?

Caleb laughs, a little. Everything hurts. _No_.)

This is what he is destined to do, it seems. Hurt the people he cares about. This is him. This isn’t Ikithon, taking over his thoughts, manipulating them and squeezing them and moulding them. This is Caleb Widowgast, destroying everything he touches. Burning it. He is so ugly inside.

And he thinks about it. Later that night, really sits down and thinks about just walking out the door and setting himself on fire. It’s an unpleasant way to die, but Caleb is an unpleasant person. A traitor, a little bit, in a different way than maybe Ikithon would have preferred. He’d rather burn himself to nothing than burn any part of Nott.

She’s sleeping in the corner of the bed, restlessly tossing from side to side. Caleb wants to go over and wake her up, ask if they can just leave this place, but she needs her rest. Caleb needs sleep, too – he hasn’t been able to have much – but he can’t bare to close his eyes. Everything feels so loud and raw.

“Caleb,” Nott says.

Caleb jolts out of his doze, breath quickening. She’s sitting on the bed, yellow eyes staring at him. She looks so young. Caleb wants to hug her, wants to touch her, wants to make sure that she’s here and still alive, to make sure that he hasn’t burned her, hasn’t killed her, hasn’t poisoned her. It’s going to happen, but not yet, not yet. Please, not yet.

He’s frozen.

Nott seems to understand that he can’t talk at the moment, because she makes the first move. She comes over and tucks herself into his side, sharp nails digging almost painfully into the skin of his arm. The pain wakes him up properly, un-clouds his mind, lets his breathing even out.

They’ve never talked about their pasts, him and Nott. At first it hadn’t been any of the other’s business, but now. But now, Caleb is so scared of what he will see. He will talk, and keep talking, and Nott will leave.

…

…

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t you. It’s not your fault. It wasn’t you. You were made to do it. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. I know you don’t realise that now, but you will. This pain that you have, that you wear all over you like a mask. It’s just that, and you can take it off someday. I know it hurts, but. It wasn’t your fault. And I’m just going to keep telling you that until you believe me.”

…

…

The first time Caleb sees them altogether, there’s this _click_ in the back of his mind.

For years, it had always been him and Astrid and – well. The three of them, together against the odds. Until Caleb hadn’t been so sure anymore, until Caleb had broken under the weight of his own grief and guilt and horror.

Here, though. Well.

It might not be a permanent thing. It probably won’t be. But they all seem to work well enough together. Fjord, Jester, Beau and Molly – Yasha when she’s here. Caleb and Nott fit themselves in, and its puzzle pieces snapping into place. Caleb hasn’t had this much fun since he was a kid.

Someday he’ll let himself fully enjoy it, the talking and the arguing and the fighting. Not now, but soon.

…

…

And who knows. Maybe they’ll be useful, in the end.

…

…

**Author's Note:**

> hello! look, it's me, early in the week instead of sunday. well, since i can't watch live, i figured i'd post this during my lunch break!! 
> 
> ...so, like. caleb. wtf, man. i cried during that explanation. (i'm kind of a wimp, but still). 
> 
> no theme this week, just angst.
> 
> (EDITED 25/05/2018 to change title - formally "this isn't unlearned", which is waaay too similar to "(this is a kind of grief)". apparently I just...forgot I did that...)


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